I was watching a demonstration on T.V. being held by the people from North Eastern India. They were demanding equal treatment from their Northern counterparts. To be treated equally, humanely and with dignity. Not like, “Ye Bahadur kahan se aa gaya or ye Chinki…..� This shows our level of intolerance. We can’t digest little differences in facial features and ascent. All of us have to conform to the herd (Read it hip and happening flock).
But everyone is not like us. I was reading about people of Geel, Belgium. I read one conversation between a husband and wife about this town,
“I just saw something very strange,� he (husband) said before I (wife) could speak. “A woman walking along with her hand to her ear, talking a mile a minute.�
“John, every other person here is talking on a cell phone!�
“She didn’t have a cell phone. She was talking into a black sandal. No one else even glanced her way.�
People behaving in strange manner on road, malls and in homes are ignored affectionately.
For many centuries, this town is caring for the mentally challenged persons. Even Nazis couldn’t break the community resolve to accept the mentally challenged as one of their own! The Nazis left the mentally ill in Geel untouched, unharmed and in peace, elsewhere they were not so lucky but executed along with Jews.
The family foster care for mentally challenged in this small town of Belgium started with the legend of a princess, who refused to marry her own father. The father got senile after the death of his beloved wife and wanted the look-alike daughter to take her place. The daughter fled to Geel. But ultimately she was caught and executed by soldiers, her father had sent. She was considered as the patron saint of the mentally ill. For centuries, they visited her shrine to seek her blessings. The villagers of Geel took in one or a few mentally ill people as a foster family indefinitely. The tradition still continues.
Mentally ill persons, who face rejection as a norm, indifference and callous attitude of society as their fate, find acceptance here. A normal home and where their being “special� doesn’t draw extra attention.
Do we really believe (forget about practicing) that God is everywhere? By respecting human beings we are honoring God Himself? I think we only recite or read Geeta from our throats not from our hearts. That’s why we see the lack of practical manifestations of its good teachings in almost every walk of life.
A sad thing about this world is, a lot is done that doesn’t come from the heart. A sense of heartlessness has engulfed this world and this shows in our day-to-day activities.
Hi Alka, What a place is Geel is, it is like heaven in earth. And your last sentence is definitely best describes Indian religious feelings. We Indians are religious, when we should ideally be spiritual like the Geelians.
nice post alka
Paradox is, though now, we are apparently more literate, we are somehow more uncivilized. Rather than broadening our minds are hearts we are becoming more and more narrow minded. Yes, in certain things we “feel” we have broadened, but then civilization as old as ours should have been different by now. Alas, we would forever wait for reformers to change things.
I would say these people are padhey likhey ganwar. These are ignorant people who didn’t get proper education and attention from their parents. The basic question is to learn respect an individual. This basic trait parents fail to teach their child and they grow into super brats.
And before I leave…I must say that please make time posts more frequently. We love your posts!
To believe God is everywhere people must realize there is only one god and he or she reside inside everybody (infact all living creature) not in the stones so respect human being. But it seems it’s hard for people because since old ages they start worshiping a person only after his or her death not when he or she alive.
It’s nice to see your post after a very long time 🙂
Dwivedi ji,
In the present context, if some ‘gentle’ person is sitting at a bus stop in front of PVR, a mentally ill comes and sits near to him/her. First reaction will be to make a distance from the guest.
And the guest’s (sick) condition till that moment is due to separation and the increased gap since long back from his/her so called near and dear ones.
In our case again take another case of slums which is primarily due to financial previledge gap.
The distance from the deprived group from the privileged group is alarming more or less in every geographical location.
Humans despite differences can be tied together with the eternal strings and we shall be able to show that, I do hope so.
Lovely post
Nice post. We Indians are no less in our ‘apartheid’ic and ‘vain positions’ ! If we were so furious about the ‘goras’ making fun of us, we are doing precisely the same now to everyone who does not conform to our parameters of ‘normalcy’